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Whenever I go into an unfamiliar school, I look closely to see what the walls tell me. I’m not just looking at signage—although that is important—but everything on the walls. A school’s “cultural ecology” is mirrored on its walls. Of course, some physical features of a school come with the territory, but the important question is, “what have they done with the place?” It starts with the halls. A building that is several decades old may feature clinical tile walls, harsh fluorescents and windowless hallways. Some buildings in that age range look like prisons, with bare, gleaming walls. Others of similar vintage shimmer with colorful student art, invite the viewer to explore ideas through posted classroom projects, or offer information for upcoming games, plays, elections, charity drives or concerts.

Many teachers still feel it’s safest to teach from the closet.

As the number of obese and overweight children grows, so does size bias.

Sports rivalries can energize school spirit. But keeping events respectful takes a dynamic blend of foresight, leadership and buy-in from the community.

A parent of a first-grader tried to wrangle her child from peering into my classroom. “He just can’t wait to be in middle school! He thinks your students are rock stars,” she said. Peter isn’t the only young student who stops by each morning to greet the older kids. And the enthusiasm goes both ways.

Among my third-graders, conflicts often arose over the issue of skin color. “Your mama left you in the oven too long. You look just like a burnt cookie!” “Oh yeah, well you look like a white boy. I bet you ain’t even black.” As a young white teacher coming into a school that is about half African-American and half Latino, I knew there would be racial conflicts, but I didn’t know how they would manifest themselves. I assumed that both groups’ first concern would be the oppression and racism from white people. I was not expecting the intense criticism that I found within the African-American community of its own members.

How does a school community deal with the violent loss of a student? Unfortunately, this is a question my school has had to answer too often. Still, no matter how many times I’ve been through it, trying to understand my own pain while holding space for my students to feel theirs is something that pushes me beyond my capacity as a teacher.

The class was silent as we waited for Samuel to collect himself. It was a respectful silence that happens when everyone knows something powerful is taking place. Samuel’s elbows were on his knees, his head was down. A few tears had fallen. Our chairs were placed in a circle. A sign posted on our classroom wall read, “Every person in this community is as important as every other person.” We were in the middle of our weekly class meeting, a time when we acknowledge conflicts and work to resolve them as a group. The current topic: name-calling and disrespectful speech.

Every now and again, a student will say something that leaves me speechless and desperate for the correct response. I can feel in my bones that the moment is about to become pivotal. One of these moments came while we were reading Katherine Paterson’s novel The Great Gilly Hopkins, in which the main character deals with her racism. We were in the process of analyzing her character, her motivations and her racist attitudes, and I could tell that my sixth-graders didn’t really understand the theme of racism, so I needed to step away from the novel for a moment and put the history in context for them.

Hands jut into the crisp autumn air, restricting my field of vision to a sea of shirtsleeves. While this is not an odd phenomenon after a new writing assignment, the types of questions are. “When will we mail it?” and “Can I make this longer than three paragraphs?” replace heavy sighs of “When is this due, again?”